Event Roundup: Digital Phone Switchover Parliamentary Reception
On October 16th, techUK together with Matt Warman MP held a Parliamentary Reception in the House of Commons on the current Digital Phone Switchover – the move of the traditional landline phone network to voice calls going over a broadband connection.
To help explain what is happening - BT, Virgin Media O2, Vodafone, Sky, TalkTalk and Openreach were on hand to talk MPs through what the UK wide upgrade to landline telephones might mean for their constituents and answer any questions.
John Whittingdale MP, the Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure, was in attendance and his opening speech talked the audience through why the upgrade in technology is so necessary and what the new improvements would mean and highlighted the importance of MPs on being educated on the switchover.
Matt Warman MP spoke of the differences brought by the change in the new underlying technology – including the powering capabilities and impact on other devices and services that have historically relied on the old analog line.
techUK’s Sarah Shepherd who leads the work on coordinating the telecoms industry spoke about the extensive efforts being undertaken to raise awareness of the switchover and ensuring that information was readily available on impacts and any action that should be taken. To this end, techUK has been working with the telecoms providers to produce a series of information sheets for a variety of stakeholders – the first of which for MPs can be read here:
Digital Landline Switchover MP Information Sheet.pdf 1
MPs and stakeholders attending were able to see what some of the resilience solutions and handsets would look like and speak to each telecoms company about how they would be moving their customers and their landlines over to the new digital technology.
For any further information, please contact Sarah at [email protected].